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If I had told you last week that Jensen Huang was about to leave Nvidia, you wouldn't have believed me.
The man who co-founded this successful AI chip company, working tirelessly to build it from the ground up and guiding it through disastrous times with endless energy and relentless determination, has ended up a victim of his own love life.
It's an extraordinary and strangely dated story for a technology company that has its eyes set on the future.
It spawned a host of viral memes, featuring Huang as the man caught on Coldplay's kiss-cam with a married colleague, or singing George Michael's classic song about betrayal, Careless Whisper.
Ironically, both were generated by artificial intelligence with the same technology he was helping to develop.
This week I met with two Silicon Valley executives and asked them how they were absorbing the news; His response was: "In memes."
But they did not appear to believe that Huang would be forced to resign over his alleged infidelity.
According to them, there was too much at stake; The entire AI industry is too dependent on Nvidia chips to break a winning formula.
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In other words, "the Valley" was on their side.
But that was before rumors of a second affair surfaced, this time with a colleague, and the board decided he had gone too far.
His behavior suddenly presented him in a different light: a man capable of making bad decisions and hiding them.
Stephen Witt, author of a biography of Huang, told the BBC that "he praises his wife, he speaks of her in very glowing terms."
"This outcome would have been bad for any family. But for someone who has worked so hard to cultivate an image of a family man and keeps his children very close to him (they both work at Nvidia) it is very bad," Witt said.
Long days and competitive spirit
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Huang always strove to stand out from the crowd.
During the coronavirus lockdowns, he live-streamed speeches from his kitchen (which achieved some online fame in its own right, but was later revealed to have been created by artificial intelligence).
He is rarely seen without a leather jacket; He has joked that he only has one suit and that he wears his daughter's partner's tie.
Huang rubbed shoulders with the elite, and his network includes Donald Trump, Elon Musk and King Charles III.
The last time I saw him was at St. James's Palace in London last year, where he received the prestigious Queen's Prize for Engineering.
They had told me that he would not speak to the press, but he came alone and we chatted for about ten minutes while the press officers watched us nervously. He spoke clearly and was optimistic about the progress of AI and the UK's role in this field.
For many, Huang was Nvidia. He had up to 200 people under his direct supervision.
I expected high standards; In his book about the company's inner workings, "The Nvidia Way," author Tae Kim wrote that office hours were long.
Huang's criticism could be brutal and public, and he did not hesitate to point out individual mistakes in all-staff meetings.
Now it is his own shortcomings that are publicly exposed, and have forced a brutal end to his career.
Nvidia without Huang
Colette Kress, who takes over on an interim basis, will be a familiar face within the company, which will no doubt be reassuring to some at Nvidia.
image copyrightNvidia
He has been with the company for 13 years and, for those who closely follow its important finances, is often present on earnings conference calls. She is a billionaire and a successful executive in the technology sector.
But she is not an engineer and Nvidia products are highly technical.
He will have to convince investors that Nvidia will continue to operate as normal, that the innovation for which it is known can continue at the current pace and that top talent will not leave with Huang.
An unstable Nvidia would be bad news for the entire AI industry, as its constantly evolving chips power the most powerful models.
As for Huang himself, we assume for now that the investigation into his relationship with the woman accused of being a Chinese spy will continue, and the results of that investigation could well determine what he does next.
He probably won't be short of offers despite his behavior, and I'm guessing Nvidia's rivals can't believe how lucky they are that their formidable competitor has dropped out of the game. Elon Musk has already said that it would be "an honor" to work with him at SpaceX.
However, it is important to remember that even if Huang turns out not to have betrayed his company or his country, he did betray his wife of 41 years, Lori Huang.
And for her, this is not a story of technology, temptation and trillion-dollar valuations.
It is a painfully personal matter.
*With additional reporting by Michael Race, Peter Hoskins and Lucy Hooker
This article was originally written in English and we used an artificial intelligence tool to translate it. A BBC journalist reviewed the text before publication. Learn more about how we use AI.
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